John 17
Jesus prays aloud to the Father — for himself, for his disciples, and for all who will believe through them — in the only extended prayer of his that any gospel records.
Summary
The prayer begins after Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven. The hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life: that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. The prayer shifts to the disciples: I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me; they have kept your word. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
The prayer for the disciples develops: he is not asking the Father to take them out of the world but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as he is not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. The final movement is the prayer for all future believers — those who will believe through the disciples' word. The petition: that they may all be one, just as you Father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that the Father has given him he has given to them, so that they may be one even as the Father and Son are one. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. The prayer ends: I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
- John 1Chapter 1 falls into two distinct movements.
- John 2Chapter 2 contains the first two incidents of the public ministry, set in very different registers.
- John 3Chapter 3 divides into a dialogue and a testimony.
- John 4Chapter 4 is built around the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in any of the four gospels.
- John 5Chapter 5 turns on a Sabbath healing that provokes the first sustained conflict with the religious authorities and generates a major theological discourse.
- John 6Chapter 6 is the longest in the gospel and the most demanding.
- John 7Chapter 7 is one of the most dramatic scenes of the public ministry, set during the week-long Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.
- John 8Chapter 8 opens with the pericope of the woman taken in adultery (verses 1–11), absent from the earliest manuscripts and widely understood as a later addition, but narratively powerful: whoever is without sin may cast the first stone.
- John 9Chapter 9 is the most novelistic chapter in John and a sustained piece of dramatic irony.
- John 10Chapter 10 follows directly from the expulsion of the man born blind in chapter 9 and develops two sustained metaphors.
- John 11Chapter 11 is the dramatic climax of the Book of Signs and the most fully narrated miracle in John.
- John 12Chapter 12 is the bridge between the two halves of the gospel.
- John 13Chapter 13 opens the Book of Glory and sets the scene for the Farewell Discourse that occupies chapters 14–17.
- John 14Chapter 14 is the opening movement of the Farewell Discourse and contains several of the most quoted passages in the gospel.
- John 15Chapter 15 moves through two large movements: the vine and branches discourse (verses 1–17) and the warning about the world's hostility (verses 18–27).
- John 16Chapter 16 continues the Farewell Discourse and moves through three phases.
- John 17Chapter 17 is the high-priestly prayer, unique in the New Testament: Jesus prays at length in the hearing of his disciples on the night of his arrest.
- John 18Chapter 18 covers the arrest, the hearings before Annas and Caiaphas, Peter's three denials, and the first half of the Roman trial before Pilate.
- John 19Chapter 19 covers the final stages of the trial and the crucifixion.
- John 20Chapter 20 narrates the resurrection in two stages across two distinct scenes.
- John 21Chapter 21 is often discussed as a possible appendix, since chapter 20 closes with a purpose statement that reads like an ending.